Systems and methods for interacting with access control devices / Honeywell International Inc.

Title: Systems and methods for interacting with access control devices.Abstract: Described herein are systems and methods for interacting with access control devices. In overview, a human user physically identifies an access control device with which he/she wishes to interact, for example in the context of providing commissioning and/or configuration data. The user then makes a physical local interaction with the device, for example by way of a smartcard having predefined characteristics. This causes the access control device to enable a wireless communications protocol, thereby to allow the user to discover the device using a portable device which implements a complementary wireless communications protocol. Commissioning information is then provided by way of the portable device to the access control device in a wireless manner. Once this is complete, the access control device disables the wireless communications protocol. ...

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to access control, and more particularly to systems and methods for interacting with access control devices. In particular, some embodiments include access control devices themselves, and/or software operable on access control devices or other devices.

Embodiments of the invention have been particularly developed for commissioning and/or configuring access control devices by way of portable wireless devices, such as PDAs, and the present disclosure is primarily focused accordingly. Although the invention is described hereinafter with particular reference to such applications, it will be appreciated that the invention is applicable in broader contexts.

BACKGROUND

Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.

It is known to use a large number of access control devices in an access control environment. Before each individual access control device is able to function as part of the access control environment, those individual devices need to be commissioned and configured.

There are two main approaches for commissioning access control devices. The first approach relies on the access control devices being connected to a common network. An auto-discovery process is conducted over this network to discover the individual devices, assign unique identifiers, and transmit other commissioning information. This approach is often difficult to implement, particularly where network security constraints affect the ability to conduct an auto-discovery process (which typically necessitates broadcast messaging). There are additional complications where there is no DHCP server available, and practical difficulties in matching electronically discovered devices to physically observable devices. For example, it is generally impossible for a user to selectively assign consecutive site-specific unique identifiers to devices located in physical proximity, on the basis that physical device locations are not revealed via network discovery.

The second approach is to individually directly connect each access control device to a terminal, such as a laptop computer, and manually transmit the commissioning information from the terminal to the device. It will be appreciated that this is a time-consuming process, and impractical where there are a large number of access control devices, or where hardware for slowing a direct connection is either unavailable or inconvenient to use. Additionally, the process is error prone, and there is a risk that non-unique identifiers could be assigned.

It follows that there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for interacting with access control devices.

a processor responsive to predefined conditions for disabling the wireless communications protocol.

One embodiment provides a method for interacting with an access control device, the method including the steps of:

making a physical local interaction with the access control device, wherein the access control device enables a wireless communications protocol responsive to the physical local interaction;

discovering the access control device by way of a wireless device which implements a complementary wireless communications protocol;

wirelessly communicating commissioning and/or configuration information from the wireless device to the access control device; and

allowing the access control device to disable the wireless communications protocol.

Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” or “some embodiments” means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment” or “in an embodiment” or “in some embodiments” in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, but may. Furthermore, the particular features, structures or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner, as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from this disclosure, in one or more embodiments.

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20120419|20120096131|interacting with access control devices|Described herein are systems and methods for interacting with access control devices. In overview, a human user physically identifies an access control device with which he/she wishes to interact, for example in the context of providing commissioning and/or configuration data. The user then makes a physical local interaction with the |Honeywell-International-Inc